2 comments:

My husband's family were the last owners to live in the house. His great-grandfather, Ivo Lea, owned a grocery store on the edge of Lawrence County and several rental properties in town, and bought the Batchelder house when my husband's grandma was in high school.From all accounts, Mr. Ivo Lea was a character, he lived in the house with his wife, Naomi Kleinpeter Lea, children, and mistress. He was also a bit of a drinker, and squandered a good bit of the family money to that aim. After he died, the house got to be too much for Mrs. Naomi. She let her son/wife live on the top floor for awhile, but later decided it was still too much of an expense and traded it to Mr. Harry Pale (sp?) for a smaller house. Mr. Pale tore down the house for its lumber, and, I believe, eventually built some of the houses that are now in the Batchelder subdivision, between N. Jackson and N. Railroad streets.

Even though the house was torn down, there is a smaller replica house on the corner of S. Jackson and Natchez....